The Seat I Saved For Myself

I used to think belonging meant being chosen. Being let in, pulled close, given a seat at someone else’s table. But that kind of belonging always felt like a subconscious loan—something I had to pay for in silence, in shape-shifting, in shrinking.

I spent years trying to be the right version of myself in the wrong rooms. Laughing quietly, nodding when I wanted to speak, softening the edges I’d spent so long sharpening. I thought if I could just be less—less loud, less sensitive, less complicated—I might finally feel like I belonged.

But I never really did.

And if I’m being honest, that still hurts. Not all the time—just in the quiet moments. When I see people settle into each other with ease. When I realize how much of me is still waiting to exhale in certain spaces.

I carry that ache quietly. I don’t talk about it much anymore, because it feels somewhat trivial to admit you still want to belong when everyone else around you seemingly does. But I do. And I think a part of me always will.

Sometimes, I wonder if there’s something wrong with me—some flaw I haven’t smoothed out, some language I never learned. Like everyone else got the map, and I’m still wandering with my hands out in the dark.

I’ve tried to override it with logic, with gratitude, with reminders of how far I’ve come. But that longing... sometimes it doesn’t answer to reason. It just sits there. Soft. Stubborn. Familiar.

Sometimes I sit at the wrong table with the wrong people for far too long before I even realize it’s not serving me anymore. And then…the exhaustion of trying to suppress the truth of myself… to try and meet external expectations…it settles in. Because I guess some part of me wants to continue being the version of myself that I think the people in my life need and want. But what about what I want?

Sometimes, even when I know a place no longer fits, I stay a little longer out of habit. Out of hope. Out of fear that maybe I’m the problem—not the place. There’s grief in that letting go. Not because I want to go back, but because I wanted so badly for it to work. I mourn the comfort I thought I had. The history, the effort, the versions of me I left behind trying to make it enough. It’s hard to walk away from something you poured yourself into, even when staying costs you your peace.

And what scares me most is the space after. The emptiness between the leaving and the becoming. What if there’s nowhere else for me to land? What if I’m too much for one place and not enough for the next? I don’t want to wander forever, dragging my longing behind me like a suitcase. Sometimes it feels safer to stay where I don’t belong than to risk not belonging anywhere at all. But staying comes with a price too—and I’m starting to realize the weight of it.

Somewhere along the way…quietly, without ceremony…I started carving out a place of my own. Not all at once. Not with confidence. Just slowly, in the spaces left behind by all the letting go. In the silence after the noise. In the stillness where approval used to live.

At first, it didn’t look like much. Just small boundaries. Honest words. A decision to stop chasing people who made me feel hard to hold. I didn’t call it a seat back then—I just called it survival. But now, looking at it—this space I’ve made, this steadiness I’ve grown into—I think it’s something more.

It’s not fancy. It doesn’t come with applause or belonging badges. But it’s mine. It was shaped by every version of me who didn’t fit, who kept trying anyway, who finally walked away. It was built by grief and rebuilt with grace.

This seat I saved for myself... it doesn’t ask me to shrink. It doesn’t ask me to earn it. It lets me rest. Breathe. Belong.

And maybe that’s all I ever needed.

And maybe saving that seat for myself did more than give me a place to land. Maybe it gave me a way to rise.

Because when you stop contorting yourself to fit, you start to remember who you are. And in that remembering, something soft but certain begins to bloom. You speak a little clearer. You stop apologizing for your fullness. You start scanning the room…not for who might pick you…but for who feels peaceful to sit beside.

This seat—the one I built slowly, painfully, honestly—has become my anchor. And from it, I’ve started making quiet reservations at new tables. Places that don’t require performance. People who feel like oxygen, not auditions. I don’t know if I’ve found them all yet—but I can feel the version of me who’s ready to.

She doesn’t beg for a chair anymore. She walks in already knowing she belongs.